Share This Article:

Symantec did the best it could to make backup look and sound sexy. For the unveiling of its new backup technologies, which promise to unify physical and virtual data stores and reduce costs by 80 percent over the next five years, it held a lavish event in the showroom of Tesla, the electric sports car manufacturer.

Even flanking the stage with two sleek Roasters did little to sex up the topic. Backup is one of those technologies and operational necessities equated to staples such as electricity and air conditioning: It’s easily taken for granted.

And that’s part of the point. Symantec and other backup vendors have come out with concurrent studies that show small businesses and enterprises drowning in financial losses because of inadequate backup systems, multiple and redundant backup systems, and operational inefficiencies.

Symantec is not the only vendor looking to tap the backup and disaster recovery market with unified offerings. Acronis recently unveiled the findings of a study it conducted with the Ponemon Institute, in which it found virtually the same trends as Symantec: a lack of backup solution adoption, poor implementation and operational practices, and the need to employ two or three solutions to address the totality of backup needs.

Unified backup and disaster recovery solutions need is paramount, Acronis said in the underlying conclusion of its research. Both vendors say bringing better backup and recovery solutions to market is a huge opportunity for the channel, as the next generation of technology will have a direct impact on customer expenses.

Symantec is looking to revolutionize backup by consolidating management and speeding the process. Yesterday, Big Yellow announced the launch of its NetBackup 7.5 for enterprise, Backup Exec 2012 and Backup Exec Cloud DR option powered by Doyenz. The solutions share many of the similar technologies that help reduce the amount of data processed by backup systems and unify the management of both physical and virtual data.

The Backup Exec series includes cloud, virtualization, hardware (Backup Exec 3600 appliance) and cloud options. The ideas behind the improvements are to provide management under a single pane of glass, make deployment and administration fast and simple, and offer speedy recovery of data to bare metal or virtual servers with ease. Backup Exec is tailored for SMB implementations, and the partnership with Doyenz enables solution providers to deliver “recovery-as-a-service.”

In NetBackup, the enterprise solution, Symantec is all about speed. It shatters the backup window from hours to minutes by only replicating data that changed. It’s Unify Snapshot and Backup provides near-instantaneous recovery of critical data. And its data retention and retirement technology helps enterprises identify information and files that can be decommissioned without risk of running afoul of regulators.

Acronis doesn’t have a new solution, but its study does point to the value of its service-based disaster recovery and backup solutions. Rather than having expensive hardware and software on site, Acronis says its services will solve the management and expense headaches of backup.

The backup and disaster recovery technology segment isn’t sexy and likely never will be. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be robust and profitable from a business perspective. Other backup vendors including Axcient, Intronis and SymForm are reporting impressive growth through the channel, as well as an increase in customer interest. As technology features, performance and value increase, so too will end-user adoption and return on investment to partners.

The backup future is so bright, you have to wear shades while driving your Tesla.

2 Responses to “Backup Vendors Aim for Unity, Simplicity”